Brazil raised to the maximum the common external tariff, AEC, that Mercosur charges on imported goods from out of the zone. The decree was published in Monday’s edition of the Official Gazette and includes a hundred goods.
Spain’s leading bank Santander denied any plan to sell its Brazilian affiliate full or partly, as was published in the Sao Paulo media following discussions with Bradesco, another top listed Brazilian bank.
Spain’s King Juan Carlos will be travelling to Brazil and Chile in the first week of June to strengthen ties with two strategic associates and in preparation of the Ibero-American summit to take place in Cadiz. The King will be accompanied by Foreign Affairs minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo and a business delegation.
Brazilian banks must lower their lending rates by between 30% and 40%, and increase lending, without raising fees, to help spur economic growth, Finance Minister Guido Mantega said in an interview with the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper.
Brazil has a plan to bolster subsidized credit aimed at increasing corporate investment with 45 billion Real (approx 22.5 billion dollars) from the country’s development bank, BNDES.
British drinks group Diageo is buying a maker of Brazil's most popular spirit, cachaça for about 470 million dollars, boosting its expansion in fast-growing emerging markets while it fights for a bigger prize in tequila.
Finance minister Guido Mantega said that Brazil has double the reserves when the 2008 global recession and is prepared to confront a deepening of the European crisis but admitted that the economy would expand below 3.5% which is less than was targeted at the beginning of the year.
How do you move and relocate half a million hogs? That is the challenge faced by Chilean sanitary authorities following the closure of the country’s largest pig farm forced after months of complaints from protesting neighbours about the persistent odours and infested waters.
Public and private sector tourism leaders gathered in Mexico for the Americas Summit of the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), a networking and discussion forum held at Riviera Maya on Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula.
Argentina explained that the YPF seizure was carried out in order to avoid an energy crisis in an article which was published in the US edition of The Financial Times newspaper and signed by Ambassador Jorge Argüello.